Cory Stillman
2024 was a landmark year for sound designer Ben Baird and his company Aquarium Studios, with Baird’s stunning work on Edward Berger‘s Conclave playing a pivotal role in the tense atmosphere of the Vatican amidst the election of a new Pope. With the help of on-location sound mixer Valentino Gianni and the entire Aquarium Studios team, Baird carefully crafted each whisper and echo of the Vatican’s shadowy halls. He also coined the perfect descriptor for the film’s soundscape: “conspiratorial silence.”
Baird describes it as “the ambience where you fear someone is whispering about you behind your back. You can’t hear it but you just sense it.”
As one might imagine, Conclave has taken on newfound relevance in the wake of Pope Francis’ death and the ensuing election of Pope Leo XIV. Tracking firm Luminate estimates that streaming viewership for the film jumped 3,200% after the passing of Pope Francis in late April. Naturally, Baird’s creative process was intertwined with the Catholic Church throughout his time working on Conclave.
“We were allowed a lot of space to explore ideas and to try things out, even going to Rome to hear what it sounds like when the Pope is in town and making a speech,” says Baird.
Of course, the Oscar-winning film is just one of several acclaimed projects that Baird and his team have worked on over the years. His soundscapes played an equally pivotal role in the 2025 release Last Breath, not to mention the documentary of the same name that preceded it. Director Alex Parkinson relied heavily on the sound team in transforming his documentary into a scripted feature.
“We had many discussions on how to bring cinematic depth and dynamics to the film,” says Baird. “A TV documentary often lives in fear of the channel being changed but with the cinema, the audience has elected to be there, so you have more time to take risks.”
Those risks involved the nixing of a gorgeously epic score that was composed for the film’s most pivotal moment: the snapping of diver Chris Lemons’ (Finn Cole) umbilical cord. Baird saw an opportunity to capture the magnitude and horror of this moment not with sweeping sound, but with sobering silence.
“The idea being that when he was cut off, he was cut off from our world, the observers as well as the people in the film,” explains Baird.
Other recent projects include the star-studded British romance Four Letters of Love and the forthcoming Scottish Samurai drama Tornado. With museum installations and even the FIFA video games to his name, Baird truly cannot be pinned down creatively. Still, he is proud of where his strengths lie.
“I do seem to have found a sweet spot for using silence in tense thrillers for the moment,” says Baird. “When you see people stop eating popcorn in the cinema because they are gripped by what is going on, that’s probably the best.”
Check out our full conversation with Ben Baird of Aquarium Studios below!
Conclave was one of the most acclaimed films of 2024, and is now receiving yet another rise in viewership with the recent election of Pope Leo XIV. As Sound Designer, you helped craft the world in which audiences watch this tense decision-making process unfold. Can you walk us through the demands of the project?
“Conspiratorial silence” was in many ways the watchword for the sound of Conclave. Before I go into this, it needs to be pointed out that the location sound recording that Valentino Gianni had done was exceptional, and rather than having a constant battle to repair and make the dialogue sound audible, we had some of the most beautiful recordings that I had experienced so far. Key to this was preparation. Edward Berger, the director, allowed the time and space for the costume and sound departments to work together to allow for the cleanest and most accurate capture of the production audio. I believe that Ralph Fiennes’s cassock had 4 pockets built in to hide 4 microphones in strategic positions on his body.
Conspiratorial silence is the ambience where you fear someone is whispering about you behind your back. You can’t hear it but just sense it. We wanted to create this feeling that in the corners and behind pillars, people are conspiring – treachery is being concocted. With a beautifully clean dialogue track, this is a joy. In between words there is nothing other than the tiny, foleyed details. The tiny clink of a metal cross, the squeak of a trainer on a marble floor – there is a claustrophobia that is created even in the large spaces of the Vatican.
In the centre of this is Dean Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who has the weight of the world on his shoulders. We wanted to enhance this weight, so he spent best part of a day recording his breath for every scene, so that we can really feel him and what he is feeling – so that, in a way, the audience becomes part of that worldly weight on his shoulders – to bring a physical connection to what he is feeling.
In the centre of the film is the scene where he breaks into the Pope’s chamber. In the script, while he is in there, Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossillini) arrives at the other side of the door, and senses that Lawrence is in the room so decides not to interrupt him as what he is up to is probably in the best interests of the Conclave. We wanted the chamber to be absolutely silent, so that you can feel Lawrence searching the room but also sense the arrival of Sister Agnes outside and focus on their breathing to transmit the unspoken communication between the two. In order to get to this place, as we progress through the film, it goes from fairly busy and noisy with each location having some kind of background and then when Lawrence closes the door behind him as he enters the chamber, we end up with no ambient sound, only the noises that he makes. It draws the audience right into his world. The hallway outside has a faint hum of the lights so when we cut to Sister Agnes outside, we can feel the difference. In many ways, this scene was the defining scene for the overall sound of the film.
To answer your question, the process of making the soundtrack for this film was simply joyful and very interesting. Edward and Nick Emerson, the editor, were very much on the sound design team. We were allowed a lot of space to explore ideas and to try things out, even going to Rome to hear what it sounds like when the Pope is in town and making a speech. Jack Wensley was working on the dialogues, assisted by Naomi Graham. They had the very hectic task of recording all the background conversations and to make them feel real. Edward had said that everything in the film was to be prepared and nothing improvised, so all the background crowd scenes were written. We were even allowed to get the main cast, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellitto, Lucian Msamati to be involved in the background conversation records. Rob Price and his team did a wonderful job with the foley. The detail on the crosses, the trainers, the wax seal, and my favorite, the book that Dean Lawrence opens when he is snooping around the Pope’s room. Jamie McPhee and Alexej Mungersdorff, with whom we have worked with for many years, helped build the deep background that gave the sense of the magnitude of the situation, but would also drop into silence when tension was required.
What was your reaction to Conclave’s continuous rise in popularity and acclaim throughout 2024 and the early part of 2025?
In most of the work that we’re involved in, a few friends and family would message me and mention they saw my name and that they thought it was good, or ok, or have some advice. With Conclave, it has been everyone I have known letting me know how much they enjoyed the film. Working on something that is popular has been a tremendous ride. Also, all the conversations, like this one, that I have had talking about the work on the film has been terrific. It turns out I like the sound of my own voice and sitting in a cinema or in a Q&A with a microphone is brilliant fun.
You also worked on a pair of period pieces starring Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth (2016) and The Wonder (2022). Can you describe the creative process behind crafting the soundscapes for those films?
Lady Macbeth was very much a milestone in the company’s history. Aquarium Studios was started in order to make soundtracks for feature films and there had been a few films up to this point but Lady Macbeth seems to mark where the focus moved to cinema entertainment.
It was a great opportunity to work on this micro-budget feature with an impressive cast and a great director in William Oldroyd. There was a very early sound design meeting where it was decided to not really have a score. A strong influence at this point was No Country for Old Men. There is one moment, I think, in the film, where there is a musical tone that is used to mark a particular point, so we adopted the idea of a single musical tone to mark the key turning points in Florence Pugh’s journey. The ambience was to be claustrophobic – and silence was adopted as the most claustrophobic option. Except for the moments where her husband and father in law go away and she opens a window to let the wind in, the majority of the backgrounds are silent. The idea of micro-details that were foleyed to create the sound and the resonance of voices and those details in the rooms made up most of the sound. Without the warm reminder that “it’s a film” from a musical score, the film does feel incredibly brutal at times. Again, silence lends itself to being a period piece as there are no planes, cars etc. The film was shot not far from a road, so there was a bit of a challenge to clean up the dialogue. There was a little ADR though it was also discovered that Florence Pugh can perform the sounds of a child being suffocated extremely well, which came in handy for the end of the film.
For The Wonder, we had worked with the director, Sebastian Lelio, on a previous film, Disobedience. Sebastian was not keen on ADR at the time and during that film, which was set in Hendon, in north London, we wanted to build the sense of a bubble in the area, so again, silence played a part in creating this bubble. It meant that some scenes had to be ADR’d for the traffic noise but he was very happy with the results. Hence, when it came to The Wonder, he was fully open to the opportunities that ADR would allow. One scene where she tries to feed the child was originally filmed with everyone shouting but we tried the idea of ADRing it all as a whisper. The anger in the facial expressions, combined with trying not to be heard did make the scene more powerful. We also were able to record a breathing track for Florence Pugh for the entire film, which we used to bring us closer to the character and learned the power of breathing to put the audience on the shoulders of the actor. The film was shot in the middle of the countryside in Ireland, so we didn’t really have to worry about modern day sounds. Another interesting element was working with Matthew Herbert who was keen to connect the ambience with the score. There’s a clock ticking sequence that shows that most clearly but the work was continued when we worked together on Daniel Koktajlo’s Starve Acre, where the lines between where score starts and ambience stops are quite blurred in places.
You played a vital role in shaping the harrowing underwater soundscape of Last Breath, the incredible true story adapted from the documentary of the same name, which you also worked on. I’d love to know more about how those experiences compared to one another, and how your approach might differ between a feature film and a documentary experience?
I have always felt that regardless of whether it’s a documentary, drama, game or exhibit, sound is part of telling the story that the director wants to tell. Obviously with documentary, there is a truth that should be adhered to but otherwise, it is about having an emotional impact on the audience. Making the documentary version of Last Breath was a learning experience. The director, Alex Parkinson, had made many documentaries but not for the cinema. So, we had many discussions on how to bring cinematic depth and dynamics to the film. A TV documentary often lives in fear of the channel being changed but with the cinema, the audience has elected to be there, so you have more time to take risks.
The ship that this all happens on is pretty functional and with the documentary, it was about finding the line where we can heighten the human experience without telling lies. There were little details like the CCTV to the Sat chambers always had sound on, so you felt connected to the divers. Also, there was a lot of foley done to enhance all the work, to make it as dramatic without again, telling lies. The main element was around the umbilical snapping. There had been a huge score written to cover this but during the process of mixing the film, we had already thought about having more space and a little less score, so that it carried more impact when it was there. So in this climactic moment, I wanted to try cutting everything, including the music at the point of severance. The idea being that when he was cut off, he was cut off from our world, the observers as well as the people in the film. It is a subtle fourth wall breaker but when it was shown to audiences, it was a major impact that was often referred to.
So, when we started work on the drama version in 2023, the umbilical was to break in the same way. It was interesting working on the drama version of the film because you realise that in a documentary, you can have voiceover and interviews to tell you what happens whereas in the drama, you can only really do it by watching and listening to incidental conversations. For the sounds, though, it was interesting that a lot of the sounds that we had created for the documentary were the basis for the sounds in the drama. The key additions was the engines for the boat – it had seven motors that would keep the boat stationary, even in storms and they fluctuate all the time as they are compensating for the movement of the sea, so we felt it important to set up this feeling from the beginning so that when the engines failed, you could suddenly feel their loss. Also, a key part, once again, was breathing. Especially Chris Lemon’s breathing. He gets stuck on the bottom of the ocean and runs out of oxygen, so it was important to make the human connection to his breath from when he puts his helmet on. The authentic sound is very mechanical and very un-human, so we made Finn Cole (Chris) breath for the entire underwater sequences and so you can really feel when he has his last breath. And of course, the breaking of the umbilical was a cut to complete silence as it was in the documentary and it too seems to impact the audience effectively.
You also designed the sound on Four Letters of Love, a moving British romance starring the legendary trio of Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne. What was it like working on a project with such a star-studded cast and crafting the sonic landscape for them to play in?
It was great. There have been a few films lately where I have been able to work with people whom I first came across before I worked in the industry. I remember watching Remington Steele with my granny in the 80s, and after Goldeneye, Pearce Brosnan became a household name. Helena Bonham Carter has always been a brilliant actor and Room with a View was a very early date night at the cinema. I have done many projects with Gabriel Byrne and have always enjoyed them. Recently, Dance First where he plays Samuel Beckett was also a great working experience but also, the recent series of War of the Worlds was great fun and because nearly everyone was gone, it was a good opportunity to do some very tense silence – which, even though it was for TV, seemed to work pretty effectively. Also, recently I did the sound for The Great Escaper with Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson and that was absolutely terrific.
As to the soundscape of Four Letters of Love, the sound really had multiple tasks to perform. Firstly, the film was set in two locations – Dublin and the West of Ireland, so as the film would change from one to the other, it was important to feel the difference in the places. Anna Sulley, who looked after the sound effects on this film, did a great job in accentuating these required differences. Secondly, the film was set in the 70s and so it was also important to give a feel for the time. Obviously cars with their older engines but also we spent quite a lot of time working with the music super to create the right kind of music for the time that would be playing in the background – be it on the radio or in the bars. Also, the film had a magic element, though not to be expressed too strongly. To give the feeling of maybe there’s magic involved or maybe it’s simply coincidence. In the film, the brother plays the Irish whistle, so we used that, overlaid with wind and a bit of flute to create a sound that could hint at the magic at key points but it would also blend into the background and score, so it could be as subtle as we wanted it.
You have worked across a wide variety of genres. Do you have a favorite genre in which you prefer to work?
Indeed, I have worked on everything from museum installations to computer games, TV fantasy to drama to documentaries, and feature films from horror to romance via quite a few thrillers. With all of them, the idea is to tell a story and the sound helps to do that. When it works, it’s great and totally satisfying. So whether it’s putting the sound of rockets in for The London Planetarium, crowds and commentary for the FIFA football game, sword fights for Merlin, the waves for the tsunami, screams that make you jump or ambiences that feel tense, I enjoy them all. But I do seem to have found a sweet spot for using silence in tense thrillers for the moment….when you see people stop eating popcorn in the cinema because they are gripped by what is going on, that’s probably the best.
I am also intrigued by your upcoming work on John Maclean’s crime saga Tornado. Can you tell us more about your approach to the sound design for that particular project?
Tornado is a Samurai film set in Scotland. I spent a bit of time reacquainting myself with some historic Samurai films. The scenes in Tornado did tend to be windy but I was keen to keep a bit of a sense of wind as a theme for the main character, who is called Tornado. So, it was an interesting challenge to find wind sounds that would work for the various ambiences while also being able to keep a bit of a different sounding wind for Tornado’s theme. Within this setting, the baddies needed to have weight, so the foley on them was particularly heavy. There is an accordion player with a squeeze box strapped to his back, so to bring a small spot of lightness, his instrument would utter the odd exasperation at a few key moments. The main task was to get Tim Roth’s performance clear. He had done this subdued yet powerful delivery which was covered in wind, so a lot of work was done to expose this performance and bring it forward to give it weight.
I tend to make cuts hard. I am not a big fan of crossfades unless there is a particular reason for it. In this film in particular, hard cuts between scenes and shots gave the edits an extra energy and added brutality to the film.
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